At the dawn of the Cold War, former Soviet soldier Mikhail Kalashnikov, 26, led a team in the design of a lightweight assault rifle, the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947. Now, 65 years later, some 100 million AK-47s have been produced - 10 times the number of US Army M16s. The original weighed roughly 4,5 kg and married the best features of a submachine gun and a long-range rifl e. "The AK-47 is often said to be poorly made, but many of its features were well-matched to the conditions of war," says CJ Chivers, The New York Times war correspondent and author...